POPPY(1)                                                 POPPY(1)



NNAAMMEE
       poppy  -  client  to perform simple tasks with a POP3/IMAP
       server

SSYYNNOOPPSSIISS
       ppooppppyy [[ooppttiioonnss]] [[sseerrvveerr__nnaammee]]

       ppooppppyy [[ooppttiioonnss]] [[uusseerrnnaammee@@sseerrvveerr__nnaammee]]

DDEESSCCRRIIPPTTIIOONN
       ppooppppyy retreives mail headers one by one from a mail server
       using  the  POP3  or  IMAP mail transfer protocol and then
       allows you to perform simple tasks on those  messages.  It
       is  primarily  used  by  systems  that have limited system
       resources, such as slow ppp connections, low  disk  space,
       or  limited  graphical support. It is written to work with
       version 4 and 5 of Perl. When  started,  ppooppppyy  looks  for
       configuration  information  in  the _~_/_._p_o_p_p_y_r_c file. Check
       the FFIILLEESS section for information on this file.

       ppooppppyy will individually read the header to each mail  mes
       sage  on  the POP3/IMAP server and then allow you to view,
       save, delete or reply to these messages.

       ppooppppyy was written to fill a specific need.  Most POP3 mail
       readers  simply  download  and  delete all emails from the
       mail server or download them and don't delete them at all.
       There is usually no way to tell the mail server afterwards
       to delete only specific emails.  ppooppppyy allows you to go in
       and  delete  emails specifically.  This way one could read
       all their email from one  location,  say  work,  and  then
       delete  all  but  the  important  message so that they can
       later download them all, say from  home.   This  is  espe
       cially nice since you are able to make the best use out of
       your high speed internet connections to improve  the  time
       spent on your low speed connection.

       Programs  that support IMAP are usually a little better in
       that they will only retrieve the mail headers but there is
       currently  very  few  programs that fully support multiple
       email accounts that are both IMAP and POP3 accounts.

       A second use is to speed your  downloading  times.   ppooppppyy
       works well along with other mail readers.  Most other POP3
       mail readers download all your mail first and then let you
       view each one.  If you get large emails it can take a long
       download period before you can read your mail.   Also,  on
       unreliable  connections,  it  is  sometimes  impossible to
       download your email when someone sends you a  large  email
       if  the  long  download  aborts.  Using ppooppppyy you can read
       just the headers to see which are important and then  read
       the  interesting  ones and possible delete any exsessively
       large ones. You can then later use your main mail  program
       to download the bulk of email during idle computer use.

       And  lastly, you can create simple replies to the original
       author of the email if you have defined an SMTP host to be
       used to relay the message.  PPooppppyy can even use a different
       From address for each mail account you have.

       ppooppppyy is a very simple program written in ppeerrll((11))  and  is
       easily modified. Note that you must have perl Version 4 or
       higher installed on your system  to  use  this  verion  of
       ppooppppyy..

OOPPTTIIOONNSS
       After a message header is displayed you are given the fol
       lowing options

       _[_V_]_i_e_w _m_e_s_s_a_g_e
              Display  the  current  message,  using  $PAGER   if
              defined in your enviornment.

       _[_T_]_o_p _o_f _m_e_s_s_a_g_e
              Display a specified number of lines from top of the
              message. Note: all of the message  header  will  be
              displayed  even if less than the number of lines in
              the header are requested.  If a value is  not  pre
              sent with the command then it will be prompted for.

       _[_D_]_e_l_e_t_e _m_e_s_s_a_g_e
              Delete the current message from  server.   You  may
              optionally specify a range of messages to delete by
              adding the range to the option (example: "D  1-4").

       _[_S_]_a_v_e _m_e_s_s_a_g_e
              Save/Append  current message to a specified file in
              standard unix mailbox format.  If a filename is not
              specified   after  the  command  then  it  will  be
              prompted for.

       _[_N_]_e_x_t _m_e_s_s_a_g_e
              Skip to the next message on the server.

       _[_P_]_r_e_v_i_o_u_s _m_e_s_s_a_g_e
              Go to the previous message on the server.

       _[_G_]_o _t_o _a _m_e_s_s_a_g_e
              Allows you to jump to a different message.  If mes
              sage number is not specified along with this option
              (example: "G 2") then it will be prompted for.

       _[_R_]_e_p_l_y
              Send a reply back to the author of the current mes
              sage.

       _[_A_]_b_o_r_t
              Quit  and  do not delete any previous messages from
              the POP3/IMAP server.  Note that  on  IMAP  servers
              other  mail  programs could have marked messages to
              be deleted but didn't actually use the  Purge  com
              mand to delete them.  Using the [A]bort function in
              poppy will cause these messages to be unmarked  for
              deletion.

       _[_Q_]_u_i_t Quit program and possibly delete all specified mes
              sages from POP3/IMAP server.

       _[_E_n_t_e_r_]
              Go to next message on the server.

       _[_-_]    Go to the previous message on the server.

       _[_|_]    Pipe the current message  to  an  external  program
              specifed after the pipe option (example: "| more").

       _[_!_]    Shell to an external program.  If no parameters are
              given with the option then it runs a shell program.
              If parameters are given then it attempts to execute
              the parameters.

       The following Command Line options are supports.


       _-_a     Work with all messages.  Overrides the -g option.

       _-_c _n_a_m_e
              Use specified configuration filename instead of the
              default.

       _-_f     Enter "From" Mode.  Display all messages  From  and
              Subject   fields.   Similar  to  the  unix  command
              "from".  This command can be used  along  with  the
              "-g"  option to display a short listing of all your
              new email or with the "-a" option to display all of
              your email headers.

       _-_g     Goto  first  new  message at startup.  Not all POP3
              servers support tracking the last read message.

       _-_h     Print short help message

       _-_l     Display Long Mail Headers.

       _-_s     Display Short Mail Headers.

       _-_v     Verbose Mode.  Print out debuging messages

       _-_q     Quiet Mode.  Print out less messages then usual.

       _s_e_r_v_e_r___n_a_m_e
              The full name or a substring to search for in  your
              .poppyrc  file.   If  found, it will log in to this
              server to read mail.  If no server_name  is  speci
              fied  then  poppy  will  log in to the first server
              listed in your the .poppyrc file.

       _u_s_e_r___n_a_m_e_@_s_e_r_v_e_r___n_a_m_e
              A combination of the user name and server  name  to
              search  for  in your .poppyrc file.  This is useful
              if you have multiple user accounts on a single mail
              server. Substrings can still be used for the server
              name.

FFIILLEESS
       _~_/_._p_o_p_p_y_r_c
              Per user configuration  file.  This  file  contains
              multiple  lines  of data, each starting with a key
              word and followed by parameters.  There must be  at
              least  one line that contains the POP3 or IMAP key
              word.

       The format of the pop and imap keyword lines are  as  fol
       lows:

       _p_o_p _s_e_r_v_e_r___n_a_m_e _s_e_r_v_e_r___p_o_r_t _l_o_g_i_n___n_a_m_e _p_a_s_s_w_o_r_d

       _i_m_a_p _s_e_r_v_e_r___n_a_m_e _s_e_r_v_e_r___p_o_r_t _l_o_g_i_n___n_a_m_e _p_a_s_s_w_o_r_d

              _s_e_r_v_e_r___n_a_m_e is the name of the host from which mail
              is to be retrieved.  This machine must be running a
              pop3 or imap daemon.

              _s_e_r_v_e_r___p_o_r_t  is  the port number of the server port
              of the POP3/IMAP service on this host, and is typi
              cally port 110 for POP3 or 143 for IMAP.

              _l_o_g_i_n login name used on server.

              _p_a_s_s_w_o_r_d  password  on  the  server. If password is
              left of the line then ppooppppyy will  prompt  the  user
              each  time  it  is  ran.   The password may contain
              spaces.

       _s_m_t_p _s_m_t_p___h_o_s_t _s_m_t_p___p_o_r_t _e_m_a_i_l___a_d_d_r_e_s_s _s_e_r_v_e_r___n_a_m_e _u_s_e_r

              _s_m_t_p___h_o_s_t is the hostname of the SMTP host.

              _s_m_t_p___p_o_r_t is the port address of the SMTP host.  It
              is almost always port 25.

              _e_m_a_i_l___a_d_d_r_e_s_s  is the address to use for all outgo
              ing emails on this SMTP host.

              _s_e_r_v_e_r___n_a_m_e _u_s_e_r is the server name and  user  name
              of  the  POP3  or  IMAP server associated with this
              STMP host.  It is valid to have one stmp line  that
              does  not include the server_name and user it asso
              ciated with.  This will be used as a  default  SMTP
              server  for accounts that do not specifically asso
              ciate an SMTP server with it.  If  the  server_name
              and user field is left off then it must be the last
              smtp line in the configuration file.

       _e_d_i_t_o_r _p_r_o_g_r_a_m
              _p_r_o_g_r_a_m is the name of the editor to run with  cre
              ating email messages to send.

       _p_a_g_e_r _p_r_o_g_r_a_m
              _p_r_o_g_r_a_m  is  the  name  of the pager program to use
              when view emails.

       _s_h_e_l_l _p_r_o_g_r_a_m
              _p_r_o_g_r_a_m _i_s _t_h_e _e_x_t_e_r_n_a_l _p_r_o_g_r_a_m  _t_o  _r_u_n  _w_h_e_n  _t_h_e
              _c_o_m_m_a_n_d _i_s _u_s_e_d_.

       _g_o_n_e_w  Add  this keyword with no parameters when you would
              like to start up _p_o_p_p_y by default to start  at  new
              messages.

       You  may  have  multiple  lines containing the pop or imap
       keyword if you need to access multiple mail servers.

       You may have multiple lines containing the smtp keyword to
       associate  a  different  SMTP  server and From address for
       each POP3 or IMAP  account.   A  line  containing  just  a
       default  SMTP  server  and From address is also valid.  If
       you have multiple connections to the internet it  is  sug
       gested  to  create  multiple  .poppyrc files to get around
       firewall problems associated with SMTP servers.

       Since it contains sensitive  data,  ~/.poppyrc  mmuusstt  have
       permissions  600  (chmod 600 ~/.poppyrc).  ppooppppyy will com
       plain and exit if ~/.poppyrc has the wrong permissions.

       If the file ~/.poppyrc does not exist  ppooppppyy  will  prompt
       for the host, port and login information interactively and
       then save this data to ~./poppyrc.

       Note that under Win95/NT, you may wish to use a  different
       name  than ~/.poppyrc as your configuration file.  This is
       changable inside the ppooppppyy script.

EENNVVIIRROOMMEENNTT
       PAGER  If set it will use this program to view  mail  mes
              sages.  It can also be defined inside the script.

       EDITOR If set it will use this program when creating email
              messages.

       SHELL  If set it will use this program as the  default  to
              run when a user uses the shell command ("!").

AAUUTTHHOORRSS
       Chris Bagwell (chris@cnpbagwell.com)

SSEEEE AALLSSOO
       The  POP3  protocol is documented in RFC 1939 and the IMAP
       protocol is documented in RFC 1730.  SMTP protocol is doc
       umented in RFC821.



                                                         POPPY(1)
